In spotlight, Cain survives attacks

Herman Cain woke up Tuesday to another day of soaring polling numbers, showing him moving into second place behind Mitt Romney and pushing Rick Perry out of the spotlight.

The day ended with the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO under attack from his rivals, both on stage and in a series of post-debate press releases meant to tear him down.

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But from his new center-stage spot next to Mitt Romney, Cain calmly weathered every jab from them, the moderators and even the Democrats, walking out from the Dartmouth auditorium having done little to hurt his standing.

Still, his rivals appear to be counting on a fast collapse under the new scrutiny he’s receiving.

Jon Huntsman was the first to strike, dismissing the “9-9-9” plan as “a catchy phrase.”

“In fact, I thought it was the price of a pizza,” Huntsman joked. “Here’s what we need: something that’s ‘doable, doable, doable.’”

Continuing his recent harsh attacks on Cain, Rick Santorum zeroed in on Cain’s support for a 9 percent national sales tax, also charging that the plan couldn’t pass.

“How many people here are for a sales tax in New Hampshire,” Santorum asked. With little response from the crowd, he continued. “There you go, Herman. That’s how many votes you’ll get in New Hampshire.”

Michele Bachmann, meanwhile, said Cain had proposed a tax plan, not a jobs plan. And in one of the more memorable lines of the night, she joked that when Cain’s tax plan is flipped upside down, it looks like the Satanic 6-6-6.

“The devil’s in the details,” Bachmann said, making her own swipe at Cain’s impracticality.

Even Mitt Romney jabbed Cain, answering the question the Atlanta businessman posed to him near the end of the debate.

Cain asked Romney whether he was able to name all 59 points of his own economic plan, and demanded to know if the former Massachusetts governor considered his plan to be simple and straightforward.

“Simple answers are often very helpful, but oftentimes inadequate,” Romney replied, declining to name each point in his own plan.

That question-and-answer segment showed Cain himself facing a tough question, from Ron Paul, about his service as chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo., and why he would not support auditing the Fed.

Cain said that the Texas congressman had misquoted him, and that the Federal Reserve board he served on “didn’t do any of the things that this Federal Reserve is doing.”

Even off-stage, Cain was the target of the night’s criticism. Ahead of the debate, Priorities USA Action, the pro-Obama group, took aim at Cain with a memo titled “Debate Night: Who is Herman Cain?” that panned Cain as the “latest anybody-but Romney.”

Cain’s been talking about the 9-9-9 plan for months, but only now, as he moves into the top tier of the polls, are conservatives actually digging into his proposal. But they’re beginning to now: Ahead of the debate on Tuesday, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist otold the Washington Post that Cain’s economic plan “simply is not politically viable,” and veteran GOP economic advisor Bruce Bartlett called it “a distributional monstrosity.”

Cain’s surge and the added scrutiny it brings comes as he’s all but disappeared from the campaign trail while touring the country to promote his new book, “This is Herman Cain!” That’s not the only thing raising questions of whether Cain can capitalize on his moment: he’s been having staff troubles, and pursuing a widely criticized plan to eschew the traditional early-state map for what he refers to as a national strategy.